CONSERVATISM FROM A FEMININE POINT OF VIEW

Tag Archives: Media Matters

This is the last post in my Liberals Gone Wild series where I have examined an article on mediamatters.org, a website for Media Matters for America, a progressive research and information center dedicated to comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the media.

Media Matters published an article on its website showcasing numerous videos where it was alleging that the Fox Cable News channel was disparaging the poor people of this nation. This came on the heels of the current President of the United States making a comment to the effect that “we need to change the way we report the news.” He belittled Fox News and indicated that they continually disparaged the poor of this nation calling them lazy, sponges, and leeches.

The act of a president even commenting on news reporting is beneath the office of the presidency. An independent media, holding government accountable and reporting the news, is necessary to sustaining a free democratic society. Not only were the president’s comments beneath him, they were scary. If the current president had his way, I believe that he would insist on a state run media where we, the people, are given only the information that the almighty government wants us to have.

In my previous posts, I reviewed and commented on the numerous videos that mediamatters.org highlighted. I found two comments, three at best that might have been in poor taste, and I said might. I really didn’t find anything in these videos that disparaged the poor. In these numerous videos, various entitlement programs were certainly discussed along with their effectiveness. As such, it appears that liberals don’t want these programs even discussed and debated, because that’s what they apparently consider as defaming the poor.

One particular word the president used when dissing Fox News was “continually.” Continually? I looked at the dates on these videos. Three were in 2011, four were in 2012, three were in 2013, one was in 2014, and six were in 2015 with three of these six on May 12 and one on May 13. One of these videos was from the John Stewart show where he replayed a video of Fox’s Stuart Varney, taking almost everything in the video out of context. I would hardly call this “continuous.”

Liberals are not tolerant in the least, and how they can preach tolerance like they do with a straight face is beyond my comprehension. All they can do is trash the other side and try to divert attention away from the issue at hand. Sadly, it works. The mainstream media picks up their talking points and it’s in their publications and broadcast over their networks. Low information voters hear it and because they are low information voters and would rather watch mindless programs such as Dancing with the Stars, than keeping up to date on current events, take it as fact. Then these low information voters, vote.

When liberals say that conservatives hate the poor, and are bigots, racists, and homophobes, the low information voters believe it. When the liberals insist that man-made climate change is undeniable and disparage those of us who have our doubts, the low information voters take their work for it without doing any research on their own.

In the past few weeks, liberals, including the current administration, driven by Media Matters for America have declared all-out war on Fox News. It’s obvious they don’t believe in freedom of speech, freedom of expression, or freedom of the press. There has also been a war on their number one personality, Bill O’Reilly.

As a political blogger, I have to keep up with everything and that means viewing left wing websites and watching CNN, and MSNBC. I rarely watch the network news, though. And while I know conservatives do say some putrid things about liberals, the things conservatives say, do not hold a candle to what liberals say about conservatives. Fox News watchers have been called every bad name I can think of. The hate and intolerance is much, much more dominant on the left.

Hey liberals, including the folks at Media Matters, if Fox News lies and/or quotes wrong information, why don’t you set the record straight? Why won’t some of you pundits go on Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity and make the arguments for you side? Fox News is number one, you know. You’ll be heard by more people than you will be if you stick to your CNN’s and MSNBC’s. But no, you refuse to return phone calls for invitations to appear on Fox News and present your side of the story. Instead, you hide under your desks and continue to defame conservatives while refusing to engage in meaningful dialog. You care nothing about facts and if the facts don’t suit you, you continue your barrage of insults.

Yes, you people make me mad. I don’t understand your logic and your thought processes. In my opinion, there’s no way a reasonable and prudent person could interpret those videos on the mediamatters.org website as disparaging the poor. Again, no reasonable way.

I’ve said this before and I’ll continue saying it, I’m a southern white conservative Christian, everything you liberals hate. To you, I’m also an unenlightened oaf. Would someone that was “enlightened” interpret those videos as disparaging the poor? I don’t think so. You know what you’re doing. You just want to destroy anyone who doesn’t agree with you and doesn’t tow your liberal line. You refuse to recognize differing points of view and have no scruples. You people think nothing of out and out lying and taking things out of context. In describing those videos you left out many phrases and sentences in an effort to get to the low information voters who will take what you say at face value.

You liberals aren’t enlightened at all. You’re what I call slick. I’ve known some “slick” people in my life. They live their lives slightly underneath the surface. Because they don’t play by the rules, they’re constantly getting themselves in trouble. As a result, they develop skills, if you can call them skills, which will get them out of that trouble. And they seem to always land on their feet. But these so-called “slick” people do eventually get caught up in their lies and frauds. Again, y’all are slick and you do seem to always land on your feet. But one of these days…

I started this and we’re going to get through it, I promise. If you’ve been reading my posts for almost two weeks, you know I’ve been responding to the current President’s and the rest of his liberal henchmen allegation that the Fox News channel continually disparages the poor.

Liberal rag, Media Matters devoted an article to the subject, listing and commenting on videos that they allege put shame on poor people I have been taking these videos one by one and analyzing them. To date, I’ve only found one or two videos where maybe two sentences were said that I wouldn’t have said. Most do no disparage the poor. In today’s post, I’m going to get through the remaining videos. Then for Friday’s post, I’ll summarize my findings and have some additional insight for you.

Fox wondered if Children Should Work for Free School Meals: Media Matters alleged that Fox News forwarded the notion that it might be appropriate for school children to be forced to work in exchange for free school meals. This came about after a Republican lawmaker in West Virginia proposed such a requirement for a new law curbing child hunger in West Virginia. According to the new law, the state of West Virginia would provide free breakfasts and lunches for every student in the West Virginia public school system. Republican Ray Cantebury proposed that the students should have to work for these free meals. Fox’s Ansley Erhardt reported on this and ask viewers to respond as to whether or not the thought this was a good idea. And that’s all. Again, this is hardly disparaging the poor. In fact, I would consider this an out and out lie by Media Matters.

Fox Contributor Lamented that the Sense of Shame is Gone from People Receiving Entitlements: During a May 2012 appearance on Fox and Friends, network contributor and New York Post columnist, Michael Goodwin, lamented that “the sense of shame is gone” from enrolling in government anti-poverty programs, which has helped lead to an explosion of entitlements. Once again, the poor were not demonized in this video segment. Mr. Goodwin was discussing the fact, yes, the fact, that we seem to be transitioning to an entitlement society and government is encouraging this, instead of advocating work and supporting yourself. Nothing was said about the individual entitlement recipients. Are we becoming so politically correct that we can’t discuss what we perceive as problems in our country?

Steve Doocy: Are Low-Income Disabled people just moochers? Steve Doocy of Fox and Friends, questioned why the number of low-income Americans receiving federal disability benefits had increased since 1960? Are more people getting sick/disabled or are we wasting money. He then later in the segment asked, “Has the number of people on disability gone up because they are moochers, or because more people need help. The guest indicated that we should have a program to take care of the disabled and Steve absolutely agreed. Steve went on the further suggest that it could the economy that is causing more people to apply for disability. If anything, Steve was taking the side of the disabled indicating that we definitely needed a program to assist those who are truly disabled. I’d say, Media Matters lied.

Bill O’Reilly Downplays Impact of Minimum Wage Increase for Low-Income Workers: First of all, I’m not going to get into the pros and cons of raising the minimum wage. That will be the subject of another post. This is about the allegations that the far left, including the current President are making that Fox News continually disparages the poor people of this nation. In this video, Bill has as his guest, Eric Shaun, another Fox News personality. Eric quoted statistics regarding the minimum wage and just who was earning only minimum wage. Bill indicated that only an infinitesimal number of people would be impacted by increasing the minimum wage. This was hardly disparaging the poor. Instead, it was a discussion, complete with statistics regarding the effects of raising the minimum wage would have. Just because liberals think the statistics are not sound, doesn’t mean that Bill and Eric were disparaging the poor. Besides, if liberals think the statistics aren’t valid, then challenge the statistics, and don’t whine that the poor are being dissed.

Charles Payne: After Thanksgiving, People Take Their Welfare Checks and Bum Rush Wal-Mart. Charles Payne is questioning why successful people are always vilified and questioned why those who want to alleviate income inequality always want to take the top down, instead of raising the bottom up. His remarks about bum rushing Wal-Mart? It might be disparaging the poor, but by a long shot.

Fox’s Charlie Gasparino Calls Public Pensions Ponzi Schemes, Wishes More Stigma was Attached to Welfare: 45.9 percent of all Americans reside in a household where some sort of government assistant is received. Charlie indicated we have a cultural situation where it’s acceptable to receive government benefits. In other words, there is no stigma. Charlie went on to say that the lack of stigma may have contributed to the rise of people on government entitlement programs. Disparaging the poor? Not hardly.

Glad that’s over. Watching those videos and taking notes was tedious. But I’m glad I did it and glad that I have it all documented. I’m also hoping this will perhaps take the site to the next level with the search engines.

While the current President’s remarks about Fox News are now old news, I think it is important to keep this on the forefront for as long as possible. It was certainly disturbing when the President said that we needed to change the way we report the news. I think if he had his way, we’d have a state run media that would tell you only the information that the government wanted you to hear. That’s evil.

This is the fourth part in my series where I am disputing the Media Matters article showcasing videos which Media Matters thinks Fox News is disparaging poor people. To date, I can find only one comment that might, and I said might, be construed to disparage the poor of this nation.

Now on to analyzing more videos:

Fox’s Stuart Varney on the Poor, “Many of them have things, what they lack is the Richness of Spirit.”: Once again, only parts of the segment were show in the video and John Stewart was disruptive so that you couldn’t get the gist of what was being conveyed. Given the brevity of this video, I came to the conclusion that Stuart Varney and his guest were saying was that what constitutes being poor in the second half of the twentieth century and the twenty-first century is not what it was in earlier times. Stuart indicated that 00% of the poor people have refrigerators. After making this statement, it sounded to me like he was going to list some other statistics about the poor, but John Stewart interrupted making it appear that the only state Stuart Varney was quoting was the refrigerator stat. Stuart then indicated that what the poor lacked was the “Richness of Spirit.” I don’t know what this means because John Stewart cut off the video before Stuart Varney had a chance to continue. Again, many things were taken out of context and I wasn’t able to listen to the entire segment with Stuart Varney and the guest.

Stuart Varney, “The Rich Suffered More Than You.”: What a crock? Granted, I’m an unenlightened oaf, but am I hearing something different when I watched this video than what liberals are hearing? First of all, Stuart Varney cites and quotes from an article in the New York Times. The Democrats are saying that income inequality is getting worse over time. Income for the very wealthy is down more than any other group. Income went down from 19% for the wealthy to 13% for middle and lower income earners. For the very, very wealthy income went from $39 million to 27 million. When Stuart and host Martha McCallum were discussing this, they seemed to be sarcastic. I think one of the may have said, “aww, poor things.” Media Matters did acknowledge that Stuart acknowledged income losses were felt more strongly by those with less wealth and that government programs lessened the suffering of the middle and lower income recipients. Although, he did say, “It turns out, the rich have suffered more than you,” he was again saying this with a sarcastic, tongue and cheek tone. And when he said this, he was viewing this from a statistical point of view, but his tone was still tongue and cheek. This absolutely does not constitute disparaging the poor.

Charles Payne Laments Lack of “Stigma” Surrounding Food Stamps: Charles indicates in this video that when there is a stigma on receiving food stamps, there is an impetus for people to get off of food stamps. The number of food stamp recipients has risen 70% since 2008. Charles is of the opinion that we have created a giant barrier that keeps those in poverty in poverty. There is never a push to get people off food stamps, but there is a push to get people on food stamps, thereby taking the stigma away. Charles did go on to indicate that if you really need food stamps, you should apply for them. Again, nothing here was disparaging the poor.

Bill O’Reilly, “How can you be so poor and have all this stuff?”: In this segment, Bill O’Reilly discussed the fact that 43% of Americans are living in poverty, but indicated that 87% had a microwave, 78% have air conditioning, 65% have more than one TV, etc. It was brought out in the segment that a lot of money that poor people take in is underground. This all was discussed thoroughly and Bill indicated twice during the segment that he was not diminishing the suffering poor people go through. He further indicated that in a capitalistic society, there will always be poor people. Once again, in this segment, I found nothing in the segment where the poor were being disparaged. In fact, it was just the opposite.

Above I summarized four additional videos that liberal rag, Media Matters, is using to convince low information voters that Fox News is evil and Republicans/Conservatives are evil. There’s so many attacks on everything traditional, and it sometimes overwhelms me. It doesn’t make me want to give up, but I do get tired of it. Liberals appear to be doing everything they can to eliminate freedom of speech; thereby eliminating the need for honest dialog on the issues facing this nation.

I was attacked earlier today and my sincere beliefs as a Republican were called delusional. And they’re not. I don’t want to give up the fight because I occasionally get attacked. Again, I have to let it run off.

If you have read my recent posts, I have spent a substantial amount of time discussing the current President’s comments that we need to change the way we’re reporting the news and his remarks that the Fox Cable News channel continually disparages the poor people of this nation, calling them lazy, sponges, and leeches. I commented on a liberal friend’s Facebook post indicating that my TV stays tuned into Fox News most of the time and I’ve never heard anyone on the channel disparage the poor. What I was called is in my 5/18/2015 post, along with my comments.

One of the liberal commenters provided to me a link to a Media Matters page containing numerous links to videos where it’s alleged that Fox News personalities were saying mean things about the poor. After briefly reviewing the web page, I realized that I could rip most of what was displayed and did rip apart the first three videos in my 5/18 post. Here are my comments on the next few videos.

Hannity asks caller if he’s voting for Obama to get an Obama Phone: This caller in this soundbite was a Democrat from Washington, D.C. who said that he was voting for Obama (this was before the 2012 election). Sean asked him if he was voting for Obama to get an Obama phone. Sean’s question about the Obama phone seemed to me very “tongue & cheek.” In fact Sean was being humorous and asked the caller to name one good thing that Obama had done since he had been in office. There was nothing wrong with this. Sean didn’t say mean things about poor people.

Fox’s Shameless Misrepresentation of SNAP Recipients: Fox News did report on a California surfer and aspiring musician named Jason, who demonstrated how he supports his beach-bum lifestyle with food stamps, while dismissing the idea of holding down a regular, steady job. So, Fox News showcased one guy who was scamming the system. Do the liberals think that everyone who is on food stamps is legit? Entitlement fraud is everywhere. In fact, most local health and human services agencies have departments for investigating fraud. We do have freedom of the press in this country, and Media Matters opined that is surely wouldn’t have been difficult for Fox to find a realistic food stamp recipient. Fox, like its counterparts, is an independent media organization and they have the right to determine what to report on. If Media Matters and the liberals were so concerned about this, why didn’t they do a counter piece showcasing deserving people in which the food stamp program has been beneficial?

Fox’s Andrea Tantaros treats food stamps as a diet plan: Once again, liberals are attacking freedom of speech and freedom of the press. This was a video of a segment on the Fox Business Network where Andrea Tantaros was a guest of Stuart Varney’s. Andrea and Stuart were discussing the food stamp program itself and definitely not disparaging its recipients. Furthermore, they indicated that they couldn’t live off of the $133 per month which is what recipients in New Jersey receive. Andrea did make a comment to the effect that she would look so good if she were on food stamps because she would lose weight and be so skinny. I did feel like that comment was crass and not particularly necessary. Here are a few comments to the video: (1) ”Is Tantaros admitting that she looks like s#*t? Because I could actually agree with that.” (2) “I don’t know, I’ve taken c#%&s that look better than her, so s#*t might not be the best adjective to describe her looks.” (3) “May she burn in her own hatred and karma, what a truly horrendous thing to say.” I did indicate that Andrea’s comments were crass, but not to the extent that they warrant comments like those above.

Granted, I’m an unenlightened oaf and maybe if I was enlightened, I could grasp all of this disparaging of the poor in the above three videos and the ones I discussed on 5/18. But I am what I am and I just don’t get it.

Our fundamental right of freedom of speech has been eroded to the extent that I am concerned about what I put out there. Using the “N-word” is absolutely forbidden anywhere; and of course, no one should use it. Several years ago, someone wrote a piece to the effect that men excelled in math and science whereas women excelled more in the social subjects. I’ve heard this all my life, but the author of that article was taken to task by some feminist groups. Now, it looks as though we can’t discuss poverty and entitlement programs in America because that would be disparaging the poor.

It’s getting worse every day and that should scare everyone. Liberals appear to want to shut down any debate and they’re doing the best they can to make as many subjects off limits for discussion. Of course, we all know that liberals don’t care about facts and cannot promote their side of an issue. Neither can they read and comprehend what they have read. It now looks like they’re incapable of watching a video and interpreting that video correctly.

In my Friday post, I will highlight more of the videos that the liberals say demonstrates that Fox News shames poor people.

The Justice Department has determined that officer Darren Wilson, of the Ferguson, Missouri Police Department, acted in self-defense and was not guilty of any wrong doing in the shooting of Michael Brown. In delivering this announcement, United States Attorney General Eric Holder looked like he would rather be in a room full of rattle snakes. It was definitely a force delivery. For the “Eric Holder” Justice Department to declare that Officer Wilson was acting appropriately and within the law and within police guidelines, anyone would have to come to the conclusion that Officer Wilson was so obviously innocent. If this Justice Department had found anything questionable, there is no doubt in my mind that Wilson would have been nailed.

In a separate report, the Justice Department described what it said was a “pattern and practice” of discrimination against African-Americans by the Ferguson police and municipal courts. That discrimination included racist emails. I haven’t looked into this report, but according to cnn.com, the report states that while the town of Ferguson, Missouri is 67% black, 85% of those whose vehicles were stopped by the police were black. Furthermore, 90% of those who received citations were black and 93% of people arrested in Ferguson were black. There is some difference here, but for a town of just 21,000, it doesn’t exactly speak volumes to me. Several Ferguson municipal employees have resigned as a result of this report.

So, on one hand, the Justice Department finds that Officer Darren Wilson did not act in any way inappropriately, but finds the Ferguson Police Department has a pattern of discrimination against blacks. The current administration appears to be anti-local law enforcement. The current President never fails to take a shot at them when some sort of incident happens, even when he doesn’t know the facts of the case. In fact, liberals in general do this and typically root for the “so-called victim.” Again, what else is new? We all know that liberals don’t care about facts.

I do have a concern regarding this administration and our local law enforcement agencies. The current President, his administration, and the rest of his supporters are into putting everything they possibly can under the control of the Federal government. What’s to stop them from taking steps to impose regulations upon our local police and sheriff’s departments? Then what’s to stop them from doing away with local law enforcement and putting all law enforcement under the Federal umbrella? Can you say GESTAPO?

Do you know who the Koch brothers are, two men who name liberals spit out with hatred? The Koch brothers are majority owners of Koch Industries, an oil, gas, chemical conglomerate and the second largest private company in the U.S. Their foundations have provided millions of dollars to a wide variety of organizations, including the United Negro College Fund. Their foundations have also contributed to conservative and libertarian think tanks. But as I said, there is overwhelming hatred for the Koch brothers from the left.

Do you know who George Soros is, someone most liberals seem to revere? He’s a Hungarian-born American businessman, investor, and philanthropist. He is also a supporter of liberal/progressive political causes. He was the guy that said he would be willing to spend all of his money to see that George Bush wasn’t re-elected president in 2004, saying that removing George Bush from office was the center of his life. Recipients of his funding include ACORN, Planned Parenthood, The Southern Poverty Law Center, Media Matters, and MoveOn.org, all suspected corrupt organizations. According to humanevents.com, Soros would like nothing better than for America to become subservient to international bodies. He wants more power for groups such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Soros has also commented that he seems himself as a messianic figure and admits that he has carried some potent messianic fantasies since his childhood. He admits to having to suppress these fantasies for fear of ending up in a loony bin.

George Soros is a very scary individual who is obviously an advocate of an eventual one world government. He has even been linked, through his foundations, to the demonstrations in Ferguson, Missouri. The Koch brothers are rich businessmen who have certainly contributed to conservative causes. They are great Americans who believe in American exceptionalism.

Whenever I hear liberals express hatred for the Koch brothers, I want to say to them, “What about your awful George Soros? Of course, liberals can say anything and when called down for it, they just start screaming and hurling insults which are about the only things they know how to do, other than muck up our nation. And they certainly have done that.